Shakespeare in the Park

Thursday night we decided to take advantage of our proximity to NYC and went in to see The Public Theatre's production of All's Well That Ends Well.  Besides from having a great reputation the Shakespeare in the Park series is absolutely free!  There is one small catch the only way to get tickets is to pick them up at 1pm at the box office day of performance.  And people start lining up hours before hand to ensure they get tickets.  It is even posted on the website that the earliest you can start lining up is 6 am, as the park is not open until then.

I could not have gotten there at 6 am even if I had wanted to, and I didn't.  My train pass is for "off peak" times which essentially means I travel at times when people commuting to the city would not want to travel, ie... middle of the day.  I was able to get to the park by 11 am, there was a small snafu in the subway, but why dewel.

I was a little nervous about my odds of getting a ticket once I found the line.  I checked the maps app on my phone to realize I was sitting 0.2 miles away from the ticket booth.  What was giving me hope was the line was fairly spread out as people had brought blankets, camps chairs and the such.  I was not this prepared, I found myself a bit envious of the foursome playing the board game they had brought from home.  But I did have a book, and a bag of peanuts.  As the theatre is in the middle of the Central Park, hence Shakespreare in the Park, it is a pretty wait.   I read a few chapters in my book, sketched a few of my fellow line waiters, and visited with the woman beside me.  

A butterfly decide to join me for the wait.

Once the line starts moving it is very quick moving. By 1:20 I had my tickets, second to the last row on the end... glad I didn't show up 30 minutes later.

I still had a little time before Daniel joined me in the city so I decided to visit the, The Museum of Modern Art, MOMA for short. I ended up spending over two hours there.  I never would have guessed modern art was my thing but I find myself very drawn to it.  Used my old student idea to save myself eight dollars.

A few of the pieces I enjoyed:

An exhibit of the napkin doodles by an artist

MOMA kept me busy until Daniel came into the city.  We got some sandwiches from a bodega and enjoyed them in the park while we waited for the show to start.

The theatre is very nice and despite having the end of the line seats, there really wasn't a bad seat in the theatre.  We got lucky and had wonderful weather for the show. While All's Well That Ends Well is not one of my favorite Shakespeare it was a very pretty show.  Well acted, I just don't like the plot.  They even utilized the turtle pond behind the theatre for as a pretty back drop and water explosion.  Unfortunately the theatre is a bit of a haul from the train station so we ended up on the late train home.

Summary      

Cost:

              Transportation (train & subways)        $16.00 

              Food                                                        $15

              MOMA                                                     $12

              Play                                                         $0      

             Total                                                         $43.00

                

Time:  15 hours

Average : $2.87 /hr entertainment 

Perks: 

Lovely day in the city fun of art and theatre.